US Attorney General William Barr says his justice department has found no proof to back President Donald Trump’s claims of fraud in the 2020 election.
“To date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election,” said the top US law enforcement agent.
His comments are seen as a big blow to Trump, who has not accepted defeat.
The comments are especially direct coming from Barr, who has been one of the president’s most ardent allies.
Before the election, he had repeatedly raised the notion that mail-in voter fraud could be especially vulnerable to fraud during the coronavirus pandemic as Americans feared going to polls and instead chose to vote by mail.
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He and his campaign have filed lawsuits in states that he lost, as they begin certifying Joe Biden as the winner.
President-elect Biden defeated Trump by a margin of 306 to 232 votes in the US electoral college, which chooses the US president. And in the popular vote, Biden won at least 6.2 million more votes than Trump.
Trump’s attorneys Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis said: “With all due respect to the Attorney General, there hasn’t been any semblance of a Department of Justice investigation,”
“Again, with the greatest respect to the Attorney General, his opinion appears to be without any knowledge or investigation of the substantial irregularities and evidence of systemic fraud,” Giuliani and Ellis said.